Belgian Malinois Attacks, Kills 9 Yr Old Girl In Phillipines

[Lollipup]

I stumbled across this news article from the Phillipines. It just happened in January. So very sad and how traumatic for the family.

I wonder what made the dog do this. Poor "attack" training maybe?

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/349229/belgian-malinois-attacks-kills-9-year-old-girl-in-zamboanga-city

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Nine-year-old Marianne Gonzales was so engrossed with memorizing the prayer for her first communion as she was walking just outside the house of Geolar Tan inside Summer Hill Subdivision in Barangay (village) Pasonanca here on Monday afternoon that she failed to notice the fast-approaching Belgian Malinois, which had managed to cut loose from its collar. In seconds, the dog leaped towards her and sank its fangs into the girl’s neck, who barely managed to shout for help.

Two more fatal bites to her face and nape and Marianne was dead.

The attack was witnessed by Marianne’s younger sister, seven-year-old Ellamarie and her cousin, 12-year-old Maricel Pahamutang.

But they could not do anything against the rampaging dog except to run home and told Marianne’s mother, Mardelyn, who was then attending to her youngest child, about it.

“I thought she was only bitten by a dog and we rushed to the area only to find out that my eldest daughter was already lifeless, her neck badly damaged,” Mardelyn said.

Even then, they brought her to the Western Mindanao Medical Center but she had no chances of surviving the dog attack, she said.

Ryan Gonzales, Marianne’s father, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that one of the caretakers saw the attack but instead of helping his daughter, the caretaker dragged her towards the main road and “ran inside the house to get a bigger collar.”

“It was as if they were used to such kind of incident before. They treated my girl like a food left by a dog. They dumped her after she was bitten. They didn’t do anything to stop the dog,” he claimed.

In an interview with the Inquirer, Efigenio Julian Jr., Pasonanca barangay chair, called Tan’s dog a “killer dog.”

“I spent my life as an investigator and the way the dog bit the girl, I am sure it’s a killer dog, a dog trained to kill,” Julian said.

He said that the girl’s family resided outside the subdivision but he took the route by Tan’s home as a shortcut.

Ryan confirmed Julian’s story and added that school children like her daughter were used to passing by Tan’s house and it was the first time that the dog attacked a human.

Senior Supt. Edwin de Ocampo, city police director, said Tan and the dog’s handler were being investigated.

The police have taken custody of the dog.

“They could be held liable for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide,” De Ocampo said, when asked what case to file against the owner and the handler.

Local veterinarian Dr. Anton Lim said he was the one looking after the dog’s health and was surprised to know it attacked a human.

“That Belgian Malinois is a working canine and this dog was very calm. I am just wondering what had happened prior to the incident,” Lim said.

Lim said he wanted to know what transpired before the attack so he could provide an opinion on why the dog attacked a human.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/349229/belgian-malinois-attacks-kills-9-year-old-girl-in-zamboanga-city#ixzz2NPEwgIFK

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[sandgrubber]

As I understand the Philippines, there's a serious problem with excessive wealth of the few, extreme poverty of the many, and dogs being used to keep the poor from stealing from the rich.

The county I lived in in California had a couple of problematic imported Belgian Malinois. These were police dogs, imported from Europe as trained adults. They escaped containment and killed a few dogs. As I remember, both dogs were PTS after killing other animals. It would be interesting to know if the dog in question was an imported guard dog owned by a rich family.

I don't think it's a breed specific problem, but I think there may be a few irresponsible breeders out there putting dogs with unstable temperament, or selling dogs as guardians who have not been properly trained. Given popular distaste for the modern show standard GSD combined with desire to adopt the 'new' alternative has put the Malinois in a position to suffer from people capitalizing on inappropriate breeding/training of guard dogs.

[Lollipup]

Interesting SG...

I guess as breeds become more popular they are vulnerable to poor breeding and training practices and especially guarding breeds. Its such a shame. I'd be very interested to know the background of the dog as well.

[Santo66]

A similar thing happened with the GSD, Rotty and Dobe years ago where dogs of unstable temperament were purposely bred from the misconception that active aggression was a sign of guarding instinct and protection quality where in actual fact it's quite the opposite where the dog reacts from thin nerve and fear aggression. Ideal protection/guard dogs are trained from stable dogs with high nerve strength and high prey drive and are taught to bite/attack under specific scenarios. The same dogs if raised as pets would be unlikely to show aggression at all, they would be environmentally stable, confdent dogs who are ball/toy crazy for play. However, the training of the right dogs who are otherwise community safe for guarding/protection is a very complex training regime beyond the breeders ability who produce fear biters misconstrude as protectors,sadly in more recent times, the breeding of unstable thin nerved dogs has extended into the Malinois breed as it did with the other iconic guarding breeds.

The "best" protection rountine I have seen was from a Malinois who was bought in to meet the people watching the demonstration, a lethal dog on field greeting strangers in a passive environment with a wagging tail. Off the job, this dog could be patted, shook hands and returned sloppy kisses to anyone who cuddled him, kids included......amazing dog and sensational training.

[BlackJaq]

I agree, and under a correct training regime, biting the sleeve is not an act of aggression for the dog, it is a move that is carefully taught and practised and performed to an exact set of rules. Prey drive is an important factor here, not aggression in general. The dog should be under the handler's control at all times and only perform direct orders, not randomly bite anything within reach.

This sort of training is way out of most people's reach and so fear aggression and poor nerves is the easiest way for some undesirable dog owners to get their dog to perform what they think is "guarding" or "attack dog" behaviour...

Edited March 16, 2013 by BlackJaq

[Santo66]

I agree, and under a correct training regime, biting the sleeve is not an act of aggression for the dog, it is a move that is carefully taught and practised and performed to an exact set of rules. Prey drive is an important factor here, not aggression in general. The dog should be under the handler's control at all times and only perform direct orders, not randomly bite anything within reach.

This sort of training is way out of most people's reach and so fear aggression and poor nerves is the easiest way for some undesirable dog owners to get their dog to perform what they think is "guarding" or "attack dog" behaviour...

That's absolutely right, the desire to bite and fight is trained from an extension of prey drive which takes a dog of extremely hard nerve to be successful and consequently, dogs with the correct nerve structure untrained are not aggressive dogs by default, they are so confident they don't care about their surroundings and don't fear anything or anyone to feel insecure and become reactive. Unfortunately the "right" dogs are often overlooked and considered no good because they don't display reactive aggression unprovoked so they opt for breeding reactive dogs because it's easier to train a reactive dog to greater heights of uncontrollable aggression to produce the sterotypical junkyard dog. A properly trained protection dog bites for the pleasure of beating their opponent in more like a serious game of tug which also provides the clear head to obey commands at the height of fighting drive over a dog reacting in an aggression frenzy which occures with nervy/reactive dogs fighting for their lives.

It's a real worry the amount of guardian breed owners of reactive dogs who think their dog is a natural protector where they are infact merely nervy dogs of poor temperament and are poor examples of the respective breeds